


F(e/i)rn

by rosesoftheday



Category: Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2
Genre: Biting, Eir - Freeform, F/F, Fluff and Smut, Guild Wars 2 - Freeform, Norn - Freeform, Snowed In, Sylvari, caithe - Freeform, eir/caithe, gw2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 17:00:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosesoftheday/pseuds/rosesoftheday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Forgive my indiscretion," she breathed, "but we don't get many fresh greens this far north."</p>
            </blockquote>





	F(e/i)rn

There were a number of people Eir Stegalkin might have expected to see silhouetted on her doorstep when she opened her door to a whiteout snowstorm, but Caithe was not at the top of that list. 

 

It took her a moment of bewildered blinking at the open door before she looked down, but when she did, she recognized Caithe's lithe form instantly, even behind the thick wrappings of foliage she had chosen for her winter coat. Non-norn seldom traveled in such weather, and a gush of confused concern pushed its way cold into her chest. She opened her mouth to say something, and her voice cracked.

 

"...Come in." 

 

She stepped aside awkwardly, and Caithe shimmied in sideways. From his bed near the fire, Garm picked up his head and whined, but seeing it was Caithe, promptly resumed his nap. Eir pushed the heavy door closed behind her with a satisfying clunk, and in the seemingly sudden closeness and heat, the awkwardness between them seemed tangible. She cleared her throat, waiting for Caithe to speak and walking towards her hearth in the meantime- she had been enjoying an evening of relative solitude, catching up on personal correspondence and drawing sketches of her next sculpture, and none of the possible explanations for Caithe's company put her at ease. She swung the fireplace crane with the kettle back over the flames- and, after a moment's consideration, took a wineskin down from the wall and hung it off the mantel, near enough to the fire to warm but not to singe the outside. She waited with dwindling patience for Caithe to explain herself, her stomach churning.

 

Caithe, in the meantime, had busied herself with removing her over clothes, watching the frost melt off the edges of the leaves as she hung them by the door. She configured her words very deliberately, watching out of the corner of her eye for Eir's reaction.

 

"You'll have to forgive me. I would have sent word, but I'm... not here, if you catch my meaning."

 

Eir squinted and set her jaw sternly, crouching to rearrange the logs in the fireplace with a long poker. It was big enough to be a spear for anyone but a norn. Caithe watched her throat move, and was glad she hadn't opted to remove her scarf first. She was sure Eir would have been less than receptive to her blushing. 

 

"I'm not sure I do. You look pretty here to me." 

 

Her tone invited explanation, not excuse. They locked eyes.

 

"I'm here without the knowledge of my guards. We had trouble on the road to Timberline Falls; I suspect one of them is Nightmare Court."

 

Eir nodded, and visibly let the tension out of her neck and shoulders. Caithe allowed herself to exhale. If nothing else, ever again, she and Eir could always understand each other on these types of matters.

 

"I see. How long do you need here?"

 

"Just a few hours, to compose some notes. I don't expect he'd be dumb enough to try and overtake either of us on the road- he's just here for reconnaissance. If you would, I'd... also request the services of a messenger... please."

 

She had to force the last half of the sentence. Eir had moved a pot of something savory-smelling over the fire, and she had her hair loose in untidy waves around her shoulders. The flickering of the flames and the shadows in the towering lodge and the movements of her corded muscles under her skin made her look like something primally exciting, and it incited a shiver up and down Caithe's spine that had nothing to do with the cold outside.

 

Her relationship with Eir had always been somewhat fraught, although in what way she meant "fraught" was always somewhat difficult to describe; whenever they'd touch, even for the most incidental of reasons, there was always a strange sense of lingering- a moment spent too long helping her up, an uncomfortably close archery lesson with her breath hot in her ear. Caithe knew that Eir knew about her and Faolain, but she had never been able to figure out what she thought of it- and wasn't sure why she cared.

 

Caithe was called out of her reverie by Eir asking her, for the second time, to sit down and have a drink. She shook herself and nodded, meticulously adjusting the fronds that covered her breasts, feeling naked without the familiar weight of her cloak.

 

*

 

Some hours passed. Caithe wrote, and crossed out, and rewrote; the kettle whistled, startling both of them, and was taken off (tea was never made); Eir sketched restlessly, leaning on one arm, her flagon of wine close at hand (and seldom empty). A gust of wind blew. A large icicle thumped off the roof outside. Eir got up to pace before the back window, wine in hand; through the leaded glass she could see the snowdrifts growing steadily taller, and frowned. Garm whined loudly, and as if reading her mind, got up and stretched, shaking his fur into place. Eir walked back to the table, scribbled something on a scrap of paper, sealed it in a small tube and offered it to the wolf to carry in his mouth.

 

This done, she crossed to the door and let him out, ruffling his ears as he trotted out into the snow. Caithe looked up; she shrugged in return, hoping this would be enough of an explanation (which it seemed to be; Caithe quickly looked back down to her letters). Without another word, Eir sat back down sideways in her chair, and returned to sketching.

 

She wanted to sculpt a man, but her hand idly traced lazily feminine forms onto the scrap of paper she brutalized; then, gradually, they turned into a nameless sylvari; and then into one with a very familiar haircut.

 

Eir scowled. That kind of thinking was... understandable, she conceded, allowing her eyes to drift over the sharp angles and swooping curves of Caithe's figure. Understandable, but inappropriate. Just because Caithe slept with women didn't mean Caithe wanted to sleep with EVERY woman, a category Eir hardly considered herself part of anyway. Hadn't there always been that strangeness between them, though...?

 

*

 

With the last note sealed, Caithe shuffled them into a neat pile and looked in the various stacks of paper strewn about the table for some twine. Finding none, she looked up to Eir sitting across from her, asleep. She had slouched over the table, her flagon just out of reach. Caithe got up soundlessly and stood next to her, watching her shoulders rise and fall with her breathing, her hair swept all to one side. She reached out hesitantly to touch her on the shoulder- since when had she become hesitant? This was Eir, not some stranger and certainly not some lover, and yet she was acting like a newly woken sprout with a first crush. Pathetic. The wind sang distantly in the gables of the lodge.

 

The moment her cool fingertips brushed the norn's skin, she woke, reaching with the other arm to take her gently by the wrist, and waited for her to speak.

 

"Thank you. These need to go out, and I need to get back to the inn."

 

Eir looked up at her with hooded eyes, as though staring at her through some fog. "You shouldn't leave. The storm's already gotten worse."

 

"There's no way I can stay."

 

Eir's grip tightened around her wrist.

 

"You're at the top of a MOUNTAIN, Caithe. You'd be swept out onto the ice and who knows where after that as soon as you stepped off my porch."

 

Caithe's face settled into an expression of discontent. Her cheeks were faintly golden  from the wine.

 

"They'll be looking for me."

 

"I sent word."

"When?" Caithe didn't like the feeling of being tricked.

 

"With Garm, while you were writing." Caithe's expression didn't change, and Eir could feel her tongue slipping, but she kept talking anyway, a wolfish grin spreading over her face. "They know you're here, but they don't know why. We can figure out what to tell them overnight. Maybe I wanted you to stay!"

 

She said it convivially, but something shifted between them, and both of them knew it. Eir took a long defiant swig of wine, refusing to break her gaze. Caithe stood over her, trying not to shiver. She took shallow breaths; her pupils were so large, her normally pale eyes were almost black. Her voice, when she spoke, was a husky whisper.

 

"Do you?"

 

Eir read her features. She had never been an especially adept planner, but reading a situation, making a decision- that she could do.

 

"Yes."

 

She drew the sylvari closer by the wrist, placing that hand on the back of her own neck, and kissed her hard, pulling her into her lap. Her lips were smooth, and not as soft as she expected- more like the shiny skin of an apple than any kind of petal- but when Caithe put both hands on the back of her head, and pushed her tongue into the heat of her mouth, Eir decided she rather liked it.

 

Caithe settled herself in the oversize chair, straddling her lap; she relished the feeling of her fingers in the norn's hair, the way it fell back into place like cool silk when mussed; Eir's hands had groped for her thighs as soon as she had gotten into her lap, but now they wandered to her lower back, bringing her closer until their bodies were flush and moving against each other. The heat of Eir's body was almost uncomfortable- like trying to hold a flame, or falling to sleep too close to the fire. It made her skin feel tight and electric.

 

It was that which broke Caithe away first, looking hungrily at her friend before shaking herself and reaching for the edge of the table to help her get up. Eir grasped her hand again, her lips swollen. Caithe mumbled, but the wine and the warmth and the proximity were making her hazy.

 

"This is foolish. I'm sorry. I shouldn't--"

 

"If this is foolish, I'm a fool." Eir said firmly, putting one arm under Caithe's buttocks and abruptly standing up. Caithe threw her arms around her neck to avoid falling, but she hardly need have bothered- Eir had an iron grip on her, and it was only a few strides to her bed, piled with various furs. Eir damned near threw her on it,

shrugging out of the loose white shirt she'd been wearing and peeling herself out of her breeches. She crawled between Caithe's legs and up to lay gentle bites on her neck, her hands tracing gentle patterns (and, in places, hard caresses) all over her body. Caithe would have expected her to be unbearably warm without the barrier of clothes between them, but here, further from the fire, the heat was more than welcome.

 

Caithe sighed, winding a heavy lock of Eir's hair around one hand and  trying not to get too lost. "So this is happening."

 

Eir's reply was mumbled against her neck, but very audible. "Do you want this to happen?"

 

When Caithe was silent for a moment, Eir bolted upright on her elbows, looking panic-stricken. Caithe blinked, and realized what she'd really been asking, and loved her so much that she could have killed her. She took the norn's face in her hands, gently, and kissed her hard, biting her lower lip. Eir ran her hands up her sides, provoking a shiver from her. When she drew back, there was a small amount of blood on her chin.

 

"Yes."

 

"Then you're going to have to tell me how this comes off."

 

She tapped one finger against her breastplate insistently. Caithe could feel the touch rattle against her exoskeleton, and laughed, shifting slightly.

 

"Try now."

 

Eir ran her hands carefully down Caithe's body again, but this time, the various leaves that made up her clothing fell aside in a dry rush. The look on the norn's face, Caithe decided, made the entire charade of the evening worthwhile. She took Eir by the wrists with an impossible gentleness, laying her uncertain hands carefully on her body and moving her face closer to be kissed.

 

The alien geometries of Caithe's body had always privately intrigued Eir, and she applied herself to mapping her swoops, ridges and plains with fingertips, lips, and tongue; she committed to memory the textures of her collarbone, the curious absence of ribs (but presence, in their place, of lettuce-like veins); the same strange ridges replacing hipbones; every part of her body smaller and sharper and yet far more solid than anyone Eir had shared her bed with before.

 

It was obvious that she had little idea what she was doing- no part of her hunter's training had ever covered Sylvari sexual anatomy- but she was a surprisingly gentle lover, and very attentive. Eir discovered that in some respects sylvari bodies were, on the whole, not very different from human ones. The presence of her right knee pressed into the junction of Caithe's legs resulted in a familiar gyration of the hips. The swipe of her thumb over the curve of a breast where a nipple should have been produced an arched back, a probable bruise on her shoulder where Caithe's fingers dug hard into the flesh, and the faint tremors of some strange shaking beneath her, like a leaf in a breeze. Without elastic muscles, sylvari couldn't properly tremble, she realized; and she assumed she was doing something right.

 

Eir was so busy learning hands-on about sylvari anatomy that she hadn't noticed Caithe's knee creeping upwards between her legs until she knocked into her thigh, provoking a shiver from her. She flattened against the sylvari like a stalking cat; Caithe used the opportunity, with a deft twist of her leg, to quickly flip them over, knocking the wind out of the norn and crawling on top of her. Before Eir could protest, she found a hard mouth covering her own, her arms pinned by the elbows above her head.

 

So Caithe never stopped being a sneakthief, even off the battlefield.

 

Everything Caithe did, it seemed, was with a roguish confidence and a certain disregard for the tenderness of flesh. She palmed her right breast roughly with one hand, dragging her fingers slowly down the norn’s ribs; Eir felt sure she’d see bruises there in the morning. She laughed at her enthusiasm, moving her arms gently out of Caithe's grasp to bring her green palm to her lips. "What do you have in store for me, thief?" Caithe smiled enigmatically in response, her pupils completely dilated. She grasped Eir’s chin gently with one hand, held her face still, and kissed her almost chastely while she shifted the other hand past the waistband of her underwear.

 

Eir was unable to suppress a gasp and a small shudder when Caithe’s fingers slipped into her, and once she started  _moving_ , all bets were off.  She had been moving her legs halfheartedly around the sylvari to try and regain the upper hand, but had only succeeded in getting them hitched above her narrow hips- which only invited more intimate contact. 

 

She tried to steady herself, grabbing hard at Caithe's arms and shoulders, working rhythmically against her. She felt as though the ground was falling away from her. Her vision spun in a familiar way, and she focused on one of the thin seams that seemed to hold the sylvari together, a pale ridge in a sea of green at her neck. Caithe's cool fingers rocked inside her with a pace that was quickly approaching feral; her head was resting in the crook of Eir's shoulder, her eyes screwed shut. In the last few moments she was lucid, Eir drove her head forwards and sank her teeth into Caithe's shoulder, right at the base of her neck. A shudder ran through her; the movement tipped Eir over the edge, and for the first time she heard Caithe make a noise she hadn't intended to- an amorous groan, small and thick in the back of her elegant throat. Deaf to her own cries, Eir relished the noise and the floating sensation of orgasm.

 

*

 

The fire burned low. Eir could see Caithe's silhouette by the light of her own bioluminescence, tangled in her furs, a polite distance away. A plume of courage blossomed in her stomach and she reached for the Sylvari, pulling her back by the hips. She moved her knee into the meeting of Caithe's legs and hooked their ankles together. One hand went to rest on the ridges of her abdomen; the other crossed her chest and came to rest at the base of her neck, carefully avoiding the still-tender site of her lover's mark.

 

Caithe remained still, trying to control her breathing. Eir's breasts pressed on her back. The hand at her stomach was simultaneously a threat and a promise. The norn's words came hot in her ear-

 

"Forgive my indiscretion," She breathed, "but we don't get many fresh greens this far north."

 

Caithe sighed. A few minutes passed, languorously, in the warmth and darkness of the Stonewright's Steading. The wine was making her sleepy. But the wind howled a sudden shriek outside, and reality pricked the skin of her heart like a cold thorn.

 

"We shouldn't have done this." Her fingers worried the edge of the pillowcase.

 

"Why not?"

 

Caithe laced her fingers between Eir's, moving the hand on her abdomen aside and shifting carefully out of the leg lock and onto her back.

 

"I can hardly come to see you, and I can't be seen coming to see you-"

She had begun to sit up. Eir pressed against her abdomen, pushing her back down and memorizing the texture under her fingertips in case it was the last time she got to feel it. Palm leaves.

"We'll carry on some way."

 

Caithe sat up. Her voice was like steel between gritted teeth.

"I don't think you know what you're asking for."

 

"Don't I?"

 

"Faolain and I-"

 

The wolfish growl that flew out between Eir's teeth startled her. She hadn't even seen her expression change. The firstborn was jostled roughly as the norn rolled away from her, swinging her legs off the edge of the bed.

 

"Are you KIDDING?"

"We have an--"

"What have you made me an accomplice to?"

 

A strained silence wound its way between them.

 

"I haven't wronged anyone." She wrapped one of the furs around her shoulders against the growing cold in the room, and scooted across the bed to huddle against the norn's back.

 

"By that," she began, placing her words carefully in line, "I meant that we have a long-distance... arrangement." She placed her hands on her back, fanning out her fingers like roots- they didn't even come close to crossing the span of her shoulders. "If you like, I can offer you a similar deal."

 

A muscle twitched in the back of Eir's neck. "If I accept, you'll come back?"

 

Caithe placed two fingers on it. Eir reached back over her shoulder and tangled their fingers together. Caithe placed a chaste kiss on the bump at the base of her neck. "When I can."

 

Eir turned to grin at her. "You'll have to teach me that trick sometime, then. How did you flip me? I'm so much BIGGER than you."

 

Caithe looked at her with an expression of knowing that turned her legs to jelly.

 

"I can show you right now."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firn  
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fern


End file.
